As is usual the symbols { } are used to provide further clarification.
We are in this world as one family or we were supposed to be but now it appears as a very disjointed and disorganized family that leaves a lot to be desired. This is the era of the ‘self’ (self-centeredness, self-glorification, self-pity and self-whining such that the ego, the body and the mind need to be pampered in self-gratification. And there is a lot of things out there that attract us to this self-glorification.
Mankind was but one nation, but differed (later). Had it not been for a word that went forth before from thy LORD, their differences would have been settled between them. Q (10: 19)
Who needs GOD when ‘contemplation’ upon HIS AWESOMENESS and GRANDURE would only slow us down? So in our own little way we, it seems, try to avoid thinking about the UNIVERSAL GOD which is just one more concept that would hamper our worldly enjoyment of which some of us can’t quite get enough.
The brain teaser of ‘why were we put in this world’ might illicit some interesting responses that could show one where our emphasis is placed. If I place the emphasis on myself, then I logically should be able to serve myself and if I love myself, then the more I serve myself and the greater the grandeur that I serve myself with, will determine my ability to be happy!
So, one can be very happy and very stupid at the same time! By concentrating on the grossly insignificant and practically abandoning the significant, shows a great lack of insight- morally, physically, mentally or spiritually or all of them in some bizarre combination. (*found at the end of the article)
And to think for a bit that we are just finite, empty containers made of ‘dirt’ bound to return to a dirt-like substance, it is no wonder that we should ‘feed’ the fire with useless stuff. However, we are not empty containers although the containers (bodies) are finite. We have that supremely precious cargo (the soul) within side the container.
It is like a suitcase containing ten million dollars. If one was given the choice of saving the one or the other, what choice would one make? Save the suitcase and throwaway the money or save the money and throwaway the suitcase.
However, it is not that simple because one needs the suitcase or some container to transport the money. Therefore a solid, ease-of-use carrying container is needed to safely carry the valuables without so much wear and tear to whatever destination it is going. I think the New Testament was speaking of this when it was considering the ‘body’ as the ‘Temple of the LORD’ or something that has to be carefully attended to because it houses ‘the essence of the REAL man’.
Don’t you know that you yourselves are GOD’s temple and that GOD’s spirit lives in you? 1 Corinthians (3: 16)
Because all of the Abrahamic religions specify the MOST IMPORTANT LAW OR THAT WHICH ALL OF THE LAW REVOLVES ARROUND, PEOPLE ARE GIVEN THE KEY SECRET TO UNIVERSAL HAPPINESS** OR THE WINNING OF THE RACE AT THE END. The key part to which the ‘man’ hangs his fate on is the STRICT BELIEF AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE CONCEPT OF HEAR YE ISRAEL (people or servants of the ONE GOD – not the ridiculous physical apartheid state of Israel) THE LORD YOUR CREATOR AND SOVERIGN KING IS ONE GOD WHO HAS NO PARTNERS OR OFFSPRING OR EQUALS.
So the person is like a garden used for life sustaining food. If the garden is well-tilled, fertilized, attended to and kept fairly free of ‘choking’ weeds, then the ‘fruit of the produce’ can be in abundance and enjoyed with much satisfaction!
**At the end does not mean immediate, instant, gratification but the soul’s winning out at the end on the Last Day of Judgment. It is like an endurance race rather than a sprint. And we can see that from adam.
The New Testament and the Quran al-Majeed form an agreement about the character and temperament of Jesus (pbh). As I have stated before, Jesus (pbh) was a very strong believer in his LORD and he was knowingly blessed in his role as what he brought (Ingeel) and who he was and what he was.
The Gospels, if understood correctly, show this man to be confident in his LORD and to be very knowledgeable about his ‘fate’. He was not a wimp, fool or whiner. In other words, he knew the future and was Protected from harm such that what was to be, would happen. That is what we can get from a close study of the ‘records’. So there is no reason for him to breakdown in tears trembling for his life!
Adam was to be a SIGN for mankind and truly he has become the ‘representative man’ for mankind in some sense. He fell from GRACE and he was pardoned BY THE ONLY ONE WHO PARDONS BECAUSE THE ONE WHO PARDONED, DETERMINED THAT PLAN AND KNEW THAT he (Jesus) WAS VERY SERIOUS IN his HUMILITY.
And it is recorded that adam was successful in his rehabilitation and was to undergo a purging and an uplifting as a pattern for the eventual ‘cleansing of man’. Not as THE CLEANER but as a pattern to what might man be like or become within his own self if ALLAH would allow! A pattern of being the human who can turn to his LORD for sustenance, protection, uplifting development, and HIS GRACE and MERCY ending in success!
Therefore, if we look at Hebrews (5: 7) as to being about adam NOT Jesus, we have formed a ‘bridge’ between the New Testament and the Quran.
Who in the days of his flesh {when he entered into the flesh-form} he offered up both prayers and {strong} supplications with loud crying and tears to the ONE able to save him from {spiritual} death and because of his {earnest and sincere piety} he was heard. Heb. (5: 7)
They {adam and eve} said: “Our LORD! We have wronged our {very} own souls: If YOU don’t forgive us and do not grant us MERCY from YOURSELF, we will certainly be {utterly} lost {and wretchedly rejected} Q (7: 23)
What we can learn from this is TO APPEAL TO OUR TRUE FRIEND AND SAVIOR as ‘he’ (adam) appealed to HIM and as all of the Prophets appealed to THE ONE WHO IS THE ALL AWARE, THE ALL HEARING, THE SELF-SUFFICIENT AND THE ONE WHO IS THE BEST DISPOSER OF AFFAIRS.
All of this was intended to have one use common sense to seek out what is simply very obvious to those who search. Life is life but it isn’t worth much if the goal is simply to feed the monkey who is going to decay while starving the soul that will last forever. To be in a good positon therefore is to ask HIM WHO HAS THE POWER TO GRANT ALL THINGS, to become more aware and thoughtful concerning how we will we be presented on the DAY OF JUDGMENT.
Therefore, spending some time in asking, seeking, searching and developing one’s self-awareness on the activities called ‘religion’, truth, the way or whatever as to what is expected of us may prove to be extremely fruitful for our ‘personal garden’
The breakdown of what today is called Christianity had its roots in the late 40’s, early 50’s AC. We can historically and honestly trace the ‘great unraveling’ through a combination of common sense and history and of course the New Testament itself.
We will call the initial shockwave of spreading the WORD to ‘foreign lands’ roughly 35-36 AC. Naturally any ‘new concept’ is not going to be accepted right away and because of this, there will be some ‘dustup’ as things are moving along. The same, by the way, happened to all of the Abrahamic religions.
Some of this ‘dustup’ is recorded in the Acts as problems basically between the people called Jews and Jews of the ‘new wave’ taking in the idea that one Jesus of Nazareth was indeed a true prophet and the ‘claimed’ Messiah on the first leg of his mission while getting ready for the second leg on his return at some point in time.
The ‘old time’ Jews were jealous concerning the ‘new kid’ on the block and presented some problems (as they did for the fledgling Muslims) for the ‘fledgling group’ which is recorded somewhat in the book of Acts. To be a ‘Jew’ meant to be of the ‘chosen people’ as Paradise was specifically for them alone and to incorporate former non-Jews was hard for the ‘arrogant’ to believe in. Therefore, we find in the Acts that ‘circumcision’ was placed higher than worshiping THE ONE which of course was total nonsense.
However, the letters of John, Jude, Timothy, Paul etc. allude to would be ‘traitors’ amongst the believers and that would have just started in all probability very slowly sometime in the late 50’s to early 60’s AC but that ‘cancer’ would have been manageable and not so destructive to the true teachings of Jesus. Why? Because the records could be harmonized and interpreted by those who formed a oneness of opinion because they were ‘relative’ witnesses to the events.
What really created the havoc of the so-called ‘multiple understandings’ is when the ‘chains’ were removed from the tempted by the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem around 70 AC, i.e., the termination of the ‘holy seventy’ or guardians and regulators of the one, true faith in the reality of Jesus the Christ (pbh).
Now, by jumping ahead to around 120 AC or some 50 years after the destruction of the Temple for comparison purposes, we can arrive at good, logical answers. In around 100 AC a man called Justin Martyr was born. He can be described as a Christian gentile who later became a topnotch church-apologist, Platonic philosopher, anti-Jewish in his views and one who had a toxic combination of philosophy, Gnosticism and pagan religious notions. He was not a pagan! He just had a peculiar belief about their ‘ideas’.
He believed that the pagan-Christian connection (for their was many) was due to a peoples who had visions of a Christ-like savior but could only use their symbolism that ‘mirrored’ real Christianity in only a primitive way for the Christ had not yet come. In other words, pagan beliefs that ‘mimicked’ the ‘supposed symbolism’ of the life of Christ were just indications of what was going to happen to the real ‘personage’ who was Jesus when he did arrive.
It’s a pity that he didn’t take another track and think of the pagans ‘twisting’ handed down true beliefs at one time into blatant twisted, falsehoods and not a precursor to the truth at all.
His lack of Hebraic knowledge concerning the Old Testament was a hindrance also because he ‘bit’ on the notion from some of the Jews that GOD had a ‘son’ or several sons but their ‘son’ (Jewish son idea) was not as glorious as his (the Christian) SON-god concept. But that wasn’t his biggest defect that we can latch on to.
No son did ALLAH beget, nor is there any god along with HIM: (If there were many gods), behold, each god would have taken away what he had created and some would have lorded it over others! Glory to ALLAH. (HE is free from the (sort of) things they attribute to HIM! Quran (23: 91)
The Jews call ‘Uzair*** a son of ALLAH, and the Christians call Christ the son of ALLAH. That is a saying from their mouths; (in this) they but imitate {repeat the pattern of} what the unbelievers of old used to declare. ALLAH’s curse be on them {those who make partners with HIM – as if HE was weak or needed help}: see how they are deluded away from {the correct pathway} THE TRUTH! Quran (9: 30)
***Uzair appears to be the well honored person in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha who rescued the Torah from extinction through GOD’s help in reconstructing it from scratch. He also has been possibly mashed up with Enoch (pbh) and maybe one other ‘character’ in a remake of legends such that he or someone becomes a super angel.
His biggest fault was ‘hanging onto’ in his early youth of about 20 or so years to a ‘travelling religious salesman’ – philosopher type individual. And that is the key to the whole lost era of what happened to the religion preached by Jesus (pbh).
An explanation follows: Justin Martyr was a young man by his own words ‘searching for a philosophy’ that he could literally sink his teeth into. He finally found one ‘so-called roving teacher’ who used his Platonic philosophical mumbo-jumbo concerning Christianity to make sense at least to the young Justin Martyr, who in truth by his own writings, was searching for a ‘philosophical identity’.
That is the key! If one thinks about analogies one can look at various countries where private citizens, who are not very well qualified in language teaching, set up schools in order to get rich by teaching the basics of say, English. However, this is done in such a shoddy fashion that the student is almost better off trying to teach himself.
According to historical records, common sense and various so-called apostolic letters, one can see that certain individuals would break away from mainstream ‘Christianity’ and create some bizarre offshoots and philosophies couched in ‘hidden and secret’ knowledge concerning the ‘great mysteries’ of the day. Today we would call these little truth twisters scam artists but back in the day, some were looked upon as ‘guides to real but hidden wisdom’.
The evidence for this is quite obvious for those who have taken the multitude of warnings given off by the legitimate spreaders of the ‘Gospel’ and even from Jesus himself as was told in the article on this website called, “The Most Fantastic and Glorious Quran”.
It just so happened that Justin Martyr was attached to the Roman center of ‘Christianity’ which would later go on to formulate strange doctrines. This Roman school of thought superseded all the other schools eventually and from such bastions of ‘philosophical blurbs’ such as Justin Martyr, came the basis for creating the eventual church doctrines of Son-ship, Trinity and other fanciful notions.
Prophet Muhammad (pbh) was, in general, neither a fan of poetry or philosophy. However, good praising of the ONE GOD and good discussions and thoughts on Comparative Religion aiming for the Truth can be somewhat related to poetry and philosophy but treated quite differently.
The analogy to this is the relationship between Able and Cain. Both were sons of adam but they were NOT equal nor treated with the same honor and respect by the ONE GOD for one was GOD-FEARING and the other was quite dishonorable.
We can know by the historical records that Justin Martyr uses the term ‘son of god’. We know that the Jews declared ‘Uzair the son of god. We know also that the ‘philosopher’ Martyr was not going to express ‘his’ Jesus as just a son (keeping up with the Jones’ idea) but being the ‘more philosophically advanced and so-called wise’, he figured that Jesus had to be THE SON due to his notion of what he thought he understood but actually did not and that is the topic of ‘LOGOS’.
And this mishmash was well understood by the ONE GOD to happen and we have the excellent passage in the Gospel of John declaring that the world would receive ‘another’ that would breakout the truth that was being either forgotten or concealed by years of philosophical gunk! Of course I’m talking about the Spirit of Truth found in the Gospel of John as to what he (this spirit) will do and why he will do it.
O ALLAH! YOU are the Truth. YOUR sayings are True. YOUR Promise is True. YOUR Paradise is True. True is the Hell-Fire and True is the Hour. YOUR Messengers are True and Prophet Muhammad (pbh) is True. (Bukhari)
The why is easy if one thinks about it and this goes all the way back to the beginnings of the Old Testament. That is, Truth is given and it then becomes corrupted and Truth is reborn again and then gets corrupted and is reborn again and again, etc. This process is shown in the sending of the multitude of prophets to ‘refresh’ the ‘spirit’ of man to the realities of the Importance of THE ONE WHO IS WORTHY OF ALL WORSHIP AND PRAISE. SO GLORY BE TO HIM THE POSSESSOR OF ALL MAJESTY AND HONOR!
*‘I really didn’t want this to blow up like this. But I’m happy to stand up. I was born a Muslim but I’m not religious, nor are my parents. We drink! We are very Americanized and happy to be here.’ Spoken by a dentist to the ‘stars’ (celebrity dentist) about being thrown off an airplane in early 2017.
What can one make of this? Well, first of all one is told in Islam to cover one’s faults as opposed to ‘bragging or opening up about them to the general public’. Secondly, if the ‘religious heart’ doesn’t feel a need to be any bigger than a pinhead, it shows what is really important in a person’s life.
This could be fame, fortune, worldly power or success. In other words, I will concentrate my efforts on being worldly successful because that ‘to me’ is the crowning achievement of life. And this sounds like the parable of the ten bridesmaids found in Mathew chapter 25 featured in the article, “Amazing Science” on this website.
This ‘dentist to the stars’ seems to indicate that one of his greatest achievements is to be ‘Americanized’. Perhaps his ‘god’ would be found trying to get himself a ‘green card’. All kidding aside, I repeat what was stated earlier: So, one can be very happy and very stupid at the same time!
And so people become deluded in the drive to obtain what ‘tickles their fancy’ in this ephemeral, worldly life at the expense of the enjoyment of the Hereafter. Let us hope that people like this supposedly rich individual will someday be able to ‘crawl out from under the rock’ that he apparently is under and that he will find happiness in true joy and awareness.
The life of this world is alluring to those who reject faith, and they scoff at those who believe. But the righteous will be above them On the Day of Resurrection; For GOD bestows HIS abundance without measure on whom HE WILLS. Q (2: 212)
